The appeal of hosting your own smart home hub solution is quite appealing once you realize the sheer amount of freedom and flexibility it gives you. Assuming you have the know-how of configuring a Linux server, at least (this is required if you want to continue reading). It opens you to a vast community-driven open-source project that has more support than you can shake a stick at. All contributed to by some incredibly talented individuals. One of the most popular is Home Assistant, and today we are reviewing one possible solution for bringing Z-Wave support to it.
Simply setting up a Home Assistant (or alternative) server isn’t enough to support everything. It connects to various product ecosystems through the use of “integrations” that have to individually be configured (ie, Vizio, Wemo, Harmony, Samsung, Philips, Control4, Z-Wave, Zigbee, and more) to bring everything together with. Sometimes, additional hardware is required to give it access to non-standard wireless protocols/frequencies.
Z-Wave is one that has this requirement. It operates outside of the normal Wi-Fi frequencies (2.4GHz, 5GHz, etc), making use of a dedicated frequency (908.42MHz) in order to communicate with compatible devices and avoid conflict with other wireless devices nearby. So in order for solutions like Home Assistant to support this, it needs a USB adapter similar to a Wi-Fi adapter. It needs a Z-Wave adapter.
Some options work better than others and there are a few questionable brands out there popping up without any reputation to band the name. So it is best to stick with a name you trust at times. Personally, we recommend two from our own experience. This includes Aeotec and Zooz, the latter of which we are covering in this article.
It is the Zooz ZST10 Z-Wave USB Stick for use with self-hosted hub solutions (like Home Assistant or openHAB). A simple USB solution that is small and incredibly user-friendly (it’s plug and play)–which is how it should be.
We are big fans of the Home Assistant (HA) platform, which is why it was what we used to test this one out with. I won’t go into detail on how to setup HA or a universal way of getting this USB stick integrated since there are multiple paths and each one depends on your own type of HA install. So I will focus on usability, user-friendliness, and reliability.
Installation/Setup
Note: In our given situation, we have HA installed on a small Linux box (a mini Intel PC running Ubuntu) using Docker. It isn’t the most ideal way of installing HA since you lose access to Supervisor (which assists with updates, backups, and more). However, it is the situation we had to work with at this time and the following method of how we installed a Z-Wave JS gateway onto the system is based on this. Your method may be different from ours and you can learn about the different ways of installing Z-Wave JS here.
Adding the Zooz ZST10 to the system was quite simple, despite this. After plugging it in, we confirmed that Ubuntu had is listed within the /dev/serial/by-id/ directory path. We then used the quick tutorial here to install the Zwavejs2Mqtt gateway onto the system. The tutorial runs you through some of the basic settings that are required. You do want to create all of the keys as this USB adapter does support Z-Wave+ with S2 (meaning it supports the latest Z-Wave security protocols). You also want to pay attention to the Home Assistant part of the settings withins Zwavejs2Mqtt as this is what allows HA to talk to it.
The install process isn’t as user-friendly as consumer-friendly products from companies like Samsung or Vera are, but again, this is for conditioned Linux users who want more out of their smart home assistant than those devices can offer.
Once the gateway was installed and the required settings had been added, we confirmed that the adapter properly showed in the device list. We then added a number of Z-Wave devices to go with it, one at a time.
Each device added to the gateway perfectly, without any trouble. Keep in mind that the gateway is using the Zooz ZST10 USB Adapter for the communication between it and all of the devices. So this means brownie points for the USB adapter along with the author (Daniel Lando) and contributing community behind Zwavejs2Mqtt. The adapter and gateway truly made a great pair.
We wound up added around 17 devices before we decided we got a little ahead of ourselves trying to see if it would choke at any point. Since it didn’t, we then took to Home Assistant.
Getting HA to speak with the Zwavejs2Mqtt gateway that was just installed/configured is easy and only takes a minute. You head to configuration in the menu and then to integrations. From here, you click to add a new integration.
From here, you search for Z-Wave JS, which is the current supported integration for Z-Wave within HA. Once you choose it, it will auto populate the address assuming you installed it on the same system that HA is installed on and you chose the default 3000 port (else you’ll have to change the value to your needs).
With a few clicks/confirmations, Z-Wave JS is added to your current integrations screen and will show all of the devices within the gateway. All of these devices then add to HA where they can interact with all of your other devices, integrations, and automations.
The only hiccup we ran into (which involved Home Assistant) was that a few devices didn’t populate all of the potential information under the device screen. One of these was a water leak sensor that only showed battery status but not device state (water detection). In order to fix this, we went the device settings screen and found that the entity was there but disabled. So we enabled it. It was then available for use within automations (which will be featured in a future story coming shortly).
Everything has been working as expected without any troubles. If we were to run into a device that wasn’t supported, it would be because of the gateway not having the device information (devices info/files are constantly being added by the community/author and you can request support for unknown devices if you run into them). Long story short, it wouldn’t be the fault of the USB adapter.
As mentioned though, all 17 devices added just fine. Each one identified within the gateway as it should (name, type of device, etc). So again, kudos to Daniel Lando and the community behind the gateway, and kudos to Zooz for making such a great USB adapter.
Our Conclusion
This proved to be a perfect experience in adding Z-Wave support to Home Assistant. The Zooz ZST10 USB Stick performed exactly as it should and gave us no problems at all. We were so incredibly happy with the results of this one and will continue to make use of it in future content relating to Z-Wave and/or Home Assistant. That’s a big win for Zooz.
On top of it all, it is one of the few products to get an almost perfect score from us. It’s hard to get a perfect 10 out of 10 with us as we typically always find something we wished we saw in a product. In this case, it is too bad it doesn’t also support the Zigbee radio, which would have allowed you to also support Zigbee devices and would have dominated the market with its price tag. Maybe in the next generation of the product.
The price point for this is all over the place, but you can typically find it on sale within the $30’s, which feels perfect for this one.
Additional Images:
Specifications:
- Z-Wave Frequency: 908.42 MHz
- Power: 4.75-5.25 VDC
- SDK: 7.13.0
- Wireless Range: Up to 1000 feet in open space, up to 250 feet indoors
- Operating Temperature: 14-104° F
- Installation and Use: Indoor only
- Dimensions: 3.5″ x 1″ x 0.4″
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
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1 Comment
Thank you I was wondering how well this one worked with HA. Not many to choose from but we all know that product claims can be deceiving. It takes experience to know if someone fulfills its function or not. You guys are always so honest about the things you touch on.